Journey to the Mountain of the Lost
by DestinysMew82
Summary: Knuckles' quiet guardian life is turned upsidedown when a spirit visits him and tells him the Master Emerald is in danger of being shattered forever! Now he must fallow this spirit and stop a wrong that has fallen in the spirit world. T 4 safety!


_Master Emerald, I know part of your past... A few months or weeks of one incident that happened thousands of years ago. A small portion of the hundreds of thousands of years you have been passed down, from your beginning, to the present where you now lay in the safety of my hands. I wish I knew the whole story, but what I know is enough to get me through my solitary life on Angel Island. though I cannot lie to you, my curiosity has caused sleepless nights every once in a while... That Tikal girl, what made her so special that Chaos excepted her at the shrine? Or even be enough to seal him and herself in your hard green shell? What ever happened to her grandmother, or her mother? Why was I chosen to be it's gardian?_

_Many more questions plague me, but what's the point of asking silly questions that will never be answer? A waste of time._

_Course, time is all I have now. I looked around the battered and moss rotten ruin, empty air to keep me company. I felt lonely time to time, believe it or not. A hard to break echidna like myself shouldn't be easily affected by the solitude forest... But sometimes it was more than I could handle, tears would never flow from my eyes, though often I wondered if it would help if I let them fall. Quiet are the days, lonely are the nights, one day this guardian life was gonna take it's toll on me. At least it's not tonight._

The cool night air swept through the forest of Angel island swiftly, like no obstacles was in it's path. The chill would shake many to their bones, but not Knuckles. He was too tough to feel cold, or he was too tough to show it. He breathed it in slowly, cooling his throat and lungs as it danced care free through his body. Knuckles mind still pondered about his questions, situations, and the strange tribe girl. She would cloud his ability to do his duty most, but why? He only met her in visions. The dead girl was only an illusion of the past, which he only spoke to her once... What could it be about her that was troubling him so much?

The echidna let out a slow, yet frustrated sigh... These thoughts were always so troubling. He slightly rested his weight on the giant gem that he protected, leaning just barely enough for him to relax. "Another long night." He mumbled, violet eyes quickly scanning the area before closing again. The night's wind howled at him, begging him to leave the ruins... But the red echidna kept his honor with his responsibilities to the Master Emerald, so leaving now would be a disgrace.

Minutes passed, and the most eventful thing was a crazy rapid squirrel had attack Knuckles' shoe laces. But a swift kick to the bum sent the fuzzy creature off. Crickets, as though on cue, replaced the bothersome rodent with their buzzing melodies. The guardian tried to keep his cool by humming a little tune of his own, but it only added on to the noise. _'I'd do anything to shut them up...'_

Almost immediately as his thoughts had finished the ruin started to shake, the emerald let out an eerie green light that send shivers down the tough teen's spine. He started to slowly step away from the Master Emerald, the more distance he made the more it would shake. As he reached the edge of the stairs the emerald shot up into the air, turning the dark night sky into bright daylight. Blinded (And disoriented) by the light Knuckles covered his eyes and took another step back, causing him to fall down the ancient stairs like a rag doll. His body bounced off each step and onto the next, cutting and bruising his skin and covering him in moss. The final step sent in further into the air, causing a much harder fall onto the ground.

"Get up..." A familiar voice commanded. Knuckles slowly moved his arms underneath his body and with great effort pulled himself up onto his knees. He slowly looked around, careful not to hurt his shore neck, and saw no one.

"Have I gone crazy?" He asked himself, looking at the ground.

"If by crazy you mean blind, then yes..." The voice said again, in the same monotone. He jolted up to his feet, pins and needles piercing his paper-like skin. "Is this the legendary Guardian? Pitiful."

"At least I'm not afraid to show myself!" He shouted back, shaking a mighty fist in the air. But soon enough the voice revealed itself, stepping to the very edge of the stairs on top of the ruin. The light of the Master Emerald was hiding the person's face, but by it's figure he could tell it was echidna.

"There is a difference between fear, and well timing..." The stranger retorted. A long silence fallowed, each looking at the other with careful eyes, making sure they didn't miss one detail about the other. But poor Knuckles, no matter how hard he looked he couldn't tell much about the stranger. The other echinda on the other hand could see every detail about him.

Many questions popped through the guardian's mind, none could be answered by simply looking.

"What are you doing here?" The red one asked in a low, slightly angry voice.

"I am here because I have been sent to assist you with the Master Emerald." It replied, never showing emotion... It was like talking to a robot.

"I don't need assistance..." He spat." As you can see, nothing is going on, and the Master Emerald is safe and..."

"To the naked eye maybe." The shadowy figure interrupted, slowly starting to walk down to the guardian. It's robe gently flowed behind it's gentle steps. "Inside the Master Emerald many spirits find it to be their Hell... Some of them are good, and most of them are very bad, but all are corrupting the power of the gem."

"Oh really? And why's that?" Knuckles crossed his arms, skeptic about this person's story.

"I'm glad you asked. You see, in order for these spirits to remain in the world of the living they need to consume energy..."

"But you just said..."

"I know what I said, if you would let me finish then you would understand." The figure interrupted his interruption, stopping in their tracks. Remaining practically in shadow, Knuckles could see some important(And not so important) details about this character. The echidna's robe was a brownish white color embroided with red flowery designs around the bust, the end of their sleeves, and at the their feet. A small, simple red cloth tied around the robe, it's ends reaching the stranger's feet. He could see they had long hair, meeting at crease of the person's waist. Knuckles could finally tell what was the person's body structure. Something shot through his body as his mind rushed into thoughts that made no sense at all. A little thought at the back at his head nagged at him, eating him alive.

The woman took a few more steps, the red one jolted back at the sight of the woman's face. _' It's her!' _

"These spirits know already about the corruption, however they believe if they drain enough power from the Master Emerald they can set themselves free and take control over it. The evil spirits will over power the good, and destroy everything in their path for revenge."

Knuckles' jaw was still a-gap, absolutely shocked of who he was talking to. She looked so different, her whole body screamed that this was not the same girl... But her eyes told him otherwise.

The young woman's brow arched, a sour look came over her face as she said,

"Is something wrong?" The red echidna snapped out of it long enough to realize she had said something, but soon fell back into confusion and became a blabbering idiot.

"Well...Uh.. A...A...How..."

"How are we going to stop them?" He slowly nodded his head, still staring at the woman. "Well, if there were only a few spirits then you could simply find the remainders of your tribe and have a shaman take care of it... But the numbers of them you'll have to take it to a much higher source... Though you're not quite ready to go yet." Knuckles immediately took offense, his face turning a bright shade of crismon as he started to rant...

"What do you mean I'm not ready?! I AM READY FOR ANYTHING! I COUL..." He trailed off as the woman started to circle around him, eyeing him as though he were a dead calf and she was a valture. Her hazed blue eyes scanned the echidna close up, she poked and tapped cetain places and yanked on his tail a few times. (Resulting in a blush and a few harsh words from Knuckles.) Finally, she finished her inspection by raising her robe slightly and giving Knuckles a swift kick in the rear, sending him flying head first into the stairs.

"By time you're fully ready the emerald will be long gone." She muttered.

Knuckles moaned slightly while he rubbed his sore head. He hadn't been flying like that since Chaos ran loose. He felt his spine crack when he tried to stand up and knew immediately that he wasn't ready for anything... But he couldn't let her know that. He was about to shout at her about various things of anger and confidence,

"Get supplies, food, water... Etc. And train as hard as you can, I shall return two weeks from now. I hope you will be ready by then." The woman said, completely stopping what the guardian was about to say as she walked pass him. She reached the top of the ruin and put the hood of her robe over her head, hiding her identity once again.

Knuckles wasn't ready for her to leave yet, he was still so confused and wanted to ask her many things. However shock still had control over his body and all he did was turn around and called out to her,

"Tikal!"

Tikal slowly turned around and looked dead on at him, you could see her eyes through the shadows that lumed over her face. "Yes, Guardian?"

"How can I train properly and protect the Master Emerald at the same time... I still have a job to do."

As he said this, the Master Emerald slowly floated down into it's rest... A slight greenish glow still illuminating from it. Tikal turned to the gem and placed her hands upon it's surface, soon after her hands slowly began to sink deep into the emerald, meanwhile a green shining barrier slowly raised around them.(A/Ns Tikal and the Emerald, not Knuckles) Knuckles stared in awe at the amazing power the young girl had. He never knew such a thing could be done with the emerald.

Once the barrier had completely surrounded the emerald Tikal turned to Knuckles,

"This barrier is only temperary... It will disappear as soon as two weeks have passed, and I will return. No one can pass it, not even you." With that said she disappeared, leaving only orange dust were she once stood.

Knuckles stood in silence for a minute or two, almost convinced that he was dreaming. The barrier, the spirits... Tikal, it all added up to one seriously confusing morning. Yet it was all too real. He would finally come to terms with that in the morning.

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**I know, I know... It's not that good. But it's ten-times better then that sailormoon story that remained on my profile. REVIEW!**

**Harlee: OR ELSE! **


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